Song of the Day: Bottomless Pit – Null Set

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is “Null Set” by Bottomless Pit from the 2013 album Shade Perennial on Comedy Minus One.

Led by Chicago lifers Andy Cohen and Tim Midyett, Bottomless Pit’s sinewy and rough take on DIY indie rock balances twin-guitar force while adapting to sounds bigger than the dive bars they cut their teeth on. Formed after their previous project, the long-running Chicago indie outfit Silkworm, which ended with its drummer’s tragic death, Bottomless Pit retained some of that band’s slithering tempos and garage-tinged roughness, adding a level of previously unheard grandiosity into the mix. The quartet’s debut, Hammer of the Gods, served as an elegy for their late bandmate, as well as continuing the band’s longtime presence in Chicago, which recently received another wind via the release of their third album, Shade Perennial. “Null Set”, named for a mathematical term for a set that can be ignored in some contexts, contradicts its title. Cohen and Midyett’s guitars are tightly locked in with each other over a fast-and-loose rhythm section, forming a four-minute slither of a song that builds on its own controlled chaos. The band sounds tempestuously fierce throughout the whole thing, and by the time they reach the end of their feedback-drenched breakdown, they’re as stoic and striking as the onyx statues on the album’s cover.

Bottomless Pit will go on tour behind Shade Perennial early next year, including a stop in Seattle on March 1st at the Sunset Tavern. Get more info and tickets for that 21+ gig here, keep an eye on their website and Facebook to hear about any updates, and watch the band play a full set in Nashville in 2012 below.